In 1950, Jessi Baker’s grandparents founded the Ole Smoky Candy Kitchen in Gatlinburg at the entrance to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park on the Tennessee side. In 2009, Tennessee passed a law that made brewing alcohol legal, and in a few months, the Bakers became the first federally-licensed moonshine makers in East Tennessee history. They now sell their flavored moonshine in all 50 states and more than 50 countries, and they host the most yearly visitors of any distillery in the world - over four million. This cookbook – really a coffee-table book with stunning photographs - starts with a “History of Moonshining in Appalachia” and then begins the recipes for food with a chapter on Cocktails, then Dips, and Breads and on and on to Brunch and finally Desserts. Not all the recipes incorporate moonshine, but even the majority of the desserts do. I worked as a bell-hop at the Greystone Hotel in Gatlinburg through much of 1962. Then Gatlinburg was a dry town owned by five families – The Ogles, the Maples, the Reagans, the Whaleys, and the Huffs – and it allowed no chain businesses. What a difference a few decades makes!
Kansas City, Missouri: Andrews McMeel Publishing, 2019. 152 pages with an Index and many full-page photos in color and black-and-white. 7.75” X 8.5” hardback with pictorial cover.